Quantification of shellfish Arginine kinases by double-enhanced immunoassay employing magnetic beads and gold nanoparticles as carrier

An Overview for the Nanoparticles-Based Quantitative Lateral Flow Assay

The development of the lateral flow assay (LFA) has received much attention in both academia and industry because of their broad applications to food safety, environmental monitoring, clinical diagnosis, and so forth. The user friendliness, low cost, and easy operation are the most attractive advantages of the LFA. In recent years, quantitative detection has become another focus of LFA development. Here, the most recent studies of quantitative LFAs are reviewed. First, the principles and corresponding formats of quantitative LFAs are introduced. In the biomaterial and nanomaterial sections, the detection, capture, and signal amplification biomolecules and the optical, fluorescent, luminescent, and magnetic labels used in LFAs are described. The invention of dedicated strip readers has drawn further interest in exploiting the better performance of LFAs. Therefore, next, the development of dedicated reader devices is described and the usefulness and specifications of these devices for LFAs are discussed. Finally, the applications of LFAs in the detection of metal ions, biotoxins, pathogenic microorganisms, veterinary drugs, and pesticides in the fields of food safety and environmental health and the detection of nucleic acids, biomarkers, and viruses in clinical analyses are summarized.

High-Throughput Identification of Allergens in a Food System via Hybridization Probe Cluster-Targeted Next-Generation Sequencing

Food allergies (FAs) are a crucial public health problem and a severe food safety issue, resulting in an urgent need for an accurate method to detect all of the hidden allergens that exist in food systems. Current methods for detecting allergens typically utilize ELISA, PCR, or LC-MS, which are suitable for the confirmatory analysis of allergens from ingredients rather than unintended contaminants. In this study, we demonstrate a hybridization probe cluster-targeted next-generation sequencing (HPC-NGS) platform for high-throughput screening of potential allergens in food systems. The HPC-NGS successfully captured target DNA fragments and identified 19 allergenic ingredients in a complex food system. Additionally, the HPC-NGS provided expected allergenic species matching rates of 94.24-100% in single food materials and 99.87-99.98% in processed food products. Thus, HPC-NGS enables the accurate characterization of allergenic ingredients and unintended allergenic contaminants in foods. Our results provide new perspectives on the use of HPC-NGS in the accuracy of high-throughput detection technologies for allergens imposed by the complex matrix effect.

Unveiling specific nanoparticle-protein interactions via evaporated drops: From molecular recognition to allergen identification

Unveiling specific interactions between nanoparticles (NPs) and proteins could benefit a better control of NPs' performance in recognition-based detection, imaging and drug delivery. Herein, we investigated the specific recognition between an aptamer modified gold nanoparticle (Apt-AuNP) and its target protein arginine kinase (AK) through a coffee-ring effect (CRE)-based approach. The evaporated droplets of the Apt-AuNP with AK featured a ring-disk-ring transition with elevated AK concentration and a disk pattern was found when the Apt was saturated by AK. Moreover, the AK concentration versus ring thickness curve below the saturation point was proved to fit in an exponential function, indicating the strong association between the Apt-AuNP and AK. In contrast, the ring thickness above the saturation point fitted in a Gompertz growth model that was similar with the Apt-AuNPs incubated with the nonspecific protein (bovine serum albumin, BSA), suggesting that AK was nonspecifically adsorbed onto the AuNPs. The impact of the specific NP-protein interaction on the translation of CRE into macroscopic patterns was further utilized to identify target food allergen AK by the Apt-AuNPs over nontarget allergens (tropomyosin, ovalbumin and β-lactoglobulin). This work provided new insight into the general NP-protein association process and demonstrated the feasibility of employing CRE as an effective tool to profile the specific interactions between NPs and proteins.